Box office.
Over the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, it grossed a non-summer record $31,770,105. In its fourth week of release it expanded to a then-record 2,232 screens. It spent a total of six weeks as the number one film at the US box office, staying on top through the Christmas and New Years period, and grossed a total of $127.8 million in United States and Canada, and $300 million worldwide, the most of any Rocky film. It was the highest-grossing sports film of all time, until The Blind Side (2009), which grossed $309 million (without accounting for inflation). It was also the highest-grossing fourth installment of a film in the United States and Canada, surpassing the record of Sudden Impact (1983). Its success led to other studios opening major films over the Thanksgiving holiday. Stallone has been quoted as saying the enormous financial success and fan-following of Rocky IV once had him envisioning another Rocky movie, devoted to Drago and his post-boxing life, with Balboa’s storyline running parallel to Drago’s. However, he noted the damage both boxers sustained in the fight made them “incapable of reason”, and thus instead planned Rocky V as a showcase of the dangers of boxing.